Fantasy Football: Introducing Weekly Matchup Analysis Charts

By Jason Sablich and Justin Sablich

Oct. 31, 2014

We are excited to share our fantasy football matchup analysis charts with you for the quarterback, running back and wide receiver (WR1 and WR2) positions. They are a way to visualize matchup data as well as to see how well a player has done in recent weeks or for the entire season.

In order to address any questions on how to use the charts, we thought a Q and A format would be the most effective. If you have any other questions, please find us on Twitter at @5thDownFantasy.

Q: What exactly is matchup analysis data?

A: Matchup analysis data is one of the most commonly used metrics in fantasy football analysis because it is the most straightforward and simple to calculate. It is simply the average amount of fantasy points that a defense is allowing to a particular position on a weekly basis.

Q: How effective are these charts in predicting fantasy performance?

A: As anyone who follows it knows, football is very unpredictable and there is no shortage of weekly examples where a player performs well despite an unfavorable matchup. The more dynamic the player, the more likely this is to happen, which is why we include results on the charts, so you can see when a player defies the matchup.

We believe that with each passing week, matchup analysis data becomes more reliable, because as the sample size grows, so does the credibility of the statistic. The average means more based on 10 games as opposed to three.

The charts are intended to be one more tool in your arsenal for deciding what players to start on your fantasy team, not the only one.

A: For WR1s and WR2s, we calculate it by hand, updating the numbers after each week. For RBs and QBs, that data is based on standard fantasy points, which is provided by FFToday.com.

Q: Why do you separate WR1s and WR2s but not RB1s and RB2s?

A: Good question. The most important reason is that the success of a running back has nothing to do with whether a back is an RB1 or RB2, other than the amount of usage. They are not defended any differently; both are up against the entirety of the opposing team’s run defense. Receivers are often covered a by particular member of the secondary depending on whether they are a WR1 or WR2. This is not always the case, but it happens enough that we think it’s worth separating the data.

Q: What’s up with the colors?

A: We use a heat map look, with warmer colors (orange and light orange) representing a positive situation or success and colder colors (blue and light blue) representing a negative situation or failure. We understand that different colors mean different things to different people, but we thought this was the most universal approach.

Q: Why is a team considered a favorable matchup one week and then not a favorable matchup another?

A: Starting in Week 10, we will only update the matchup colors for weeks that have yet to be played. All of the matchup colors will be consistent for Weeks 1-9. For example, if CHI is orange, or favorable, for Weeks 1-9 and is blue, or unfavorable, for Week 10, it means the data has changed, making CHI an unfavorable matchup for Week 10. In this case, we will not update the matchups for Weeks 1-9. We do this because a team may undergo personnel changes , mostly due to injuries, which could weaken a defense for the later weeks of a season.

Q: I have some feedback for how to make the charts better. How can I submit this?